Raiding 10s vs 25s

Cass and I have been raiding 10 mans a lot more than we usually do in the last couple of weeks. This is because some of our raiders have mysteriously vanished on progression nights and we’ve been left short of a full 25 man roster. There has been several nights when the raid has been called and we have split into two 10 man groups.

During our 10 man last week the conversation came up:
What do people prefer? 25 mans or 10 mans?

I’ve always preferred the thrill of downing bosses in 25 man. When there are so many more people to coordinate it seems so much more satisfying when you finally complete progression content with 24 other people.

Our tank who was raiding when level 60 was still end game, admitted he much preferred doing 10 mans. Considering this is someone who has always played pretty seriously and is definitely the type to want the best gear available for his class, I was surprised. Quite a few of the other raiders also piped up that they preferred the 10 Man environment as well because they felt they contributed more to the team and that the intimate environment was something they enjoyed.

So if many serious raiders prefer the 10 man environment, why the hell is everyone still raiding 25 mans?

I’ve been thinking quite hard about this since that night and, to be honest, with the difficulties we’re having in TOGC (heroic, or whatever you want to call it) 25, I’m starting to agree with them – I welcome the 10 mans. It’s quite a relief to scale down some nights.

So why the change in heart? Perhaps the main reason for this is I really like the majority of people that play in our 10 man crew. While we have played together in a 25 man setting for months, the current 10 man group has only been together for approximately 3 week. There’s about 13 or so that shuffle depending on who’s online. Most of us are fairly aware of each others strengths and weaknesses and we’re proving to be pretty successful – we cleared Heroic TOC 10 last night for the first time, got our rusty drakes last week.

I don’t think I’m the only one who feels this way, Keeva from Tree Bark Jacket recently wrote a post on how much she is loving the 10 man atmosphere now that she has reformed her guild.

The most popular post I’ve written for this blog has been the gear guide for 10 Man/Casual raiders. I think I’ve gotten approximately 3 times as many hits on that page in comparison to my 25 Man raider page.

A fellow Barthilas blogger has also scaled back from 25 man raiding and actually created a separate branch in his long term guild specifically for 10 man raids. His aim was to create a group that only raided 10 mans a couple of times a week but with the efficiency and quality of hardcore players.

So is the only reason to enter 25 mans status, progression ranks and gear? I’m not completely convinced. When it’s put like that it sounds quite elitist and shallow. Mercenary even. These are not traits that come to mind when I think of the other members of our 25 man guild.

What do you guys think – why do you want to raid 25 mans? Remind me of all the good stuff please!

11 Responses to “Raiding 10s vs 25s”

Loot and Prestiege It’s a harder road, and generally not as enjoyable along the way, but the rewards are better.

Personally for me, I prefer 10s, having a greater impact on the result and getting 10 dedicated people is soo much better than having to find 25. In current content, even a single mistake from 1 person, can result in a wipe for the entire raid, having to thus rely on 24 other people, not just 9, to not make mistakes is hugely frustrating.

Firefighter or Yogg+1 for instance, were hugely frustrating on 10man, with a single mistake from just 1 person wiping the raid. At various stages during bothm, I was just about ready to yell at people (which is something I REALLY don’t like doing, and the fact that I wanted to is something I don’t like to see in myself when I’m playing a game for fun), but imagine those achievements in 25s….

Often in 25s, I don’t even have the urge to yell, because I’m consigned to the fact that someone will inevitably make a mistake, and chances are it will be one of say 5 players within the raid 90% of the time. That’s what is frustrating in 25s, but the elation of getting down that boss in the end makes it worthwhile.

Afterall, the harder you have to work for something, the more it’s worth to you when you finally get it. Without frustration, anger or sadness, how can you truely understand and appreciate the joy of winning or happiness.

I’ve been thinking a lot about this lately, especially as one of my in-guild best friends has recently stepped down from raiding 25s at all. I think I enjoy 10s slightly more than 25s but only because I already raid 25s. 25s are like having a job with coworkers you love. 10s are like playing drunk kickball with your friends in the park. I love the atmosphere on vent and being able to keep track of exactly what is happening better. But 10s are only a little more facerolly *because* everyone I play with has 25 man gear. I didn’t enjoy 10s nearly as much when I wasn’t also raiding the same content on 25s.

And guilds that have set 10 man rosters end up with the same scheduling drama 25s guilds have, because they’re working from a smaller pool. I think it’s worse because losing one of 2 healers is much worse than losing one of seven. In a guild that has enough raiders to put together a 25, there’s always going to be some flexibility in how you put together 10s.

I think it’s all about scale. 25 people banding together to defeat an Old God has a bigger feel, like something more important is happening. I think there is also an element of ego involved. Call is prestige, call is epeen, call it anything you like, there is a feeling that if you don’t raid 25-mans, you’re not a real raider.

I wouldn’t say I enjoy ten man raiding more than 25 man raiding but there are some massive bonuses. Firstly, no passangers. There are still some gear issues (almost ironed out now) with our group, but ever raider is very good at raiding. It is extremely refreshing not to have the same people making the same mistakes all the time.

The real kicker – and the only reason I really left 25 man raiding – is time. Four nights a week and it’s also very serious for 25-mans. Two nights a week, a lot of breaks and a look of messing about for 10-mans. It’s so much less like work and more like fun.

That being said, is downing Arthus going to be the same for me as it is for a 25-man raider? Will it have the same elation? I don’t know. I do know, though, that downing Shade of Aran after a few weeks of wiping back in TBC felt almost as good as Keal….
.-= Vok’s last blog … Epic Encounters – Prologue =-.

We’re a 10-man guild that have recently dabbled a bit in 25-mans (mostly because of a random alignment of the moons so that nearly all our raiders signed up at the same time) and I must admit that personally I prefer 10-man. To me it is a more epic feeling to beat something in a small tight-knit group of adventurers than in a large, frantic group.

It would be interesting to see what happened if Blizz made loot the same ilevel across 10 and 25s and put them on the same raid lockout. What would people choose? Would 25s still be considered the only “real” raiding?
.-= Tufva’s last blog … Odd groups got left, even groups got right! =-.

I vastly prefer 10-mans. Why? Because of the social aspect of it. In 10-man we can easily have fun and joke around on Vent while clearing trash and stuff. Imagine the same in a 25-man. It simply wouldn’t work. I also feel a lot closer with the 10-15 people I run 10-mans with. It’s also a lot easier to keep a rather consistent line up, which helps progress. As you mentioned, you really get to know peoples strengths and weaknesses.

Although this thought might sound foreign to some, the major reason I raid (progress, beating and to some degree loot matters as well, of course) is the social aspect of it. Overcoming challenges with friends. With 5-mans being a joke and 25-mans a not so social environment, I prefer 10-mans.
.-= Ercles’s last blog … Sheeping Noobs =-.

I know you asked why we prefer 25 mans, but I just thought I would comment on why I much prefer 10 mans. I completely get that in 25 mans you have to coordinate more people, and so it is more difficult in that sense. But in 25 mans, there is so much more room for slack. In some cases, you can do a 25 man boss with only 24 or 23 people. I (also NE resto druid) can do no healing over some 25 man bosses and no one will die. In a 10 man, if one person even slightly screws up and dies, in most cases it’s a wipe.

I guess I prefer 10 mans because my success feels so much more dependent on whether I performed perfectly, and it feels like I had a much bigger part of the raids success. And you know that if you down a difficult 10 man boss, everyone did everything right as there is so much less margin for error.

And less people, high chance of getting l00tz!!! (yes i know the loot is worse)

as a raid leader and being responsible for the raid invites i find 25′s to be a nightmare sometimes, having 30 people to fit into 25 slots oneweek, and then the next week having only 18-19 people show for raids is bloody annoying,

however the grief i get when i organise a 10man group (10s are done on a casual basis in our guild and just sort of happen when people organise them) i get 10-15 complaints of “why wasn’t i invited etc,

as to the environment when actually in there killing the bosses, 10′s feel great as you know you are not carrying anyone, but when you look at the dps meters on a 25′s fight and you see variances of 7k down to 3.5k on a fight, you start to wonder why you are bothering

Some say, size doesn’t matter, but sometimes it does. I just love seeing 24 fellow raiders on the screen casting and beating the crap out of a boss. I love being part of a healer team with an own healer channel. I love all guild and raid leaders putting so much effort in organizing the raid schedule. I also had absolutely the best times in WoW in BC 25 raids.

Nevertheless, I absolutely see the advantages of 10 man raids: Easy to organize, much more intimate, more responsibility for every single raiders, challenging hard modes which aren’t as brutal hard as many 25 man hard modes.
.-= drug’s last blog … Quo Vadis Blizzard? =-.

I know that this is a very old post but I just happened to be reading through some of the older posts you guys have (You two rock btw!) and in the comments on this post I found something eerily prophetic from poster Tufva, “It would be interesting to see what happened if Blizz made loot the same ilevel across 10 and 25s and put them on the same raid lockout. What would people choose? Would 25s still be considered the only “real” raiding?”
Very interesting since patch 4.0.1 has dropped. I know that my personal preference is 10s because of the friendlier atmosphere and the heavier reliance on performance, losing 1 man in a 25 wont hurt a raid too much, but losing a person in a 10 puts a HUGE weight on the other raiders shoulders…with the gear being equal I think that most people will pass up the difficulty of organizing those for a much easier 10.